City Council members merit a real salary

Updated 6:10 pm, Thursday, February 21, 2013

Members of San Antonio's City Council work for more than 40 hours a week, but they aren't paid adequately. A charter amendment setting a reasonable salary is worth pursuing.

Members of San Antonio's City Council work for more than 40 hours a week, but they aren't paid adequately. A charter amendment setting a reasonable salary is worth pursuing.

Photo: Kin Man Hui / San Antonio Express-News

City Council members merit a real salary

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One of the arguments against full-time salaries for San Antonio City Council members is that the city has a strong-manager form of government.

This is another way of saying that San Antonio has a city manager responsible for day-to-day administration. Other cities have a system in which the mayor serves as the executive, doing more than just setting policy.

And none of that has any bearing whatsoever on whether San Antonio's mayor and council members should be paid for the city work they do.

Mayors and council members even in city manager forms of government in large cities work full-time-plus, planning and setting policy and resolving constituent concerns. And in San Antonio, they are paid just $20 per meeting, not to exceed $1,040 a year for council members, $3,000 for the mayor.

Members of the council typically work more than 40 hours per week, including a lot of evening work, but let's suppose that's the average is 40 hours. Maxed out at current allowable pay, council members then earn 50 cents an hour, the mayor $1.44.

In a big city, with big city problems to solve, this is ludicrous. Citizen leadership is a noble sentiment, but council members paid a living wage will be citizens no less. And if they are paid for the work they do, will more resemble the city's residents as a whole.

Councils in cities with city managers are not involved in day-to-day operations in any case, anywhere. They mostly legislate, among other duties.

Council members, of course, have staff members who do a lot of this work as well. And they're paid full time.

But their supervisors aren't? This makes no sense, both as a matter of fairness and as a matter of access to elected office by those other than the independently wealthy or those who otherwise have secure income and the ability to take off from their jobs or pursuits for large chunks of time; retirees or business owners, for instance.

These people can serve the city well. But there is simply no reason to effectively limit the ability to serve to just people in a comfortable enough financial position to do so. Also, full-time pay could mitigate the potential for conflicts of interest that arise when council members take jobs, out of necessity, outside of the council.

An Express-News article by Josh Baugh recently reported that Mayor Julián Castro is open to the idea of a charter amendment to provide for full-time pay for the mayor and council.

He or other council members should move from just being open to the idea to actively pushing for it. It's time.

San Antonio is the second largest city in Texas, behind Houston, and the seventh largest in the nation. On this matter of pay, it should stop pretending that it is some small burg out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

This will require a voter-approved city charter amendment and, to be palatable, the mayor and council might have to exempt those serving current terms. We note that the San Antonio median household wage is $43,152 but recognize also that the pay might have to be less than that for voters to approve.

But if only on the basis of fairness, council members should be paid a reasonable salary. It is the right thing to do.